Ximei

Ximei is a young peasant woman from rural Henan Province who contracted AIDS when the local government encouraged farmers to sell their blood plasma for money, literally bleeding people for profit with contaminated equipment. Risking her own life and freedom, she confronts the local authorities head on, demanding that her fellow patients receive medical treatment in the rural areas of her county where hundreds of thousands have been infected. These survivors don’t have clinics, medicines or the treatments they require and are sentenced to die in China’s forgotten AIDS villages. Officials try to cover up the scandal and terrorize Ximei into silence, placing her under house arrest and surveillance and forcing her to close her halfway house for AIDS victims. Ximei single-handedly fights the authorities for these villagers to overcome social and legal discrimination and receive proper medication. Her courageous actions and fiery character transform the tragedy of Henan’s HIV-infected outcasts into lives of hope and dignity.